Deadrise (12 page)

The patrol continued on another half mile to the next checkpoint before turning east, headed towards the mountain. Looking out the back window, Matt could see the midmorning sky was clear, and provided an excellent view of the valley. A few fires still raged across the city: one out in Kearns, another in North Salt Lake and one far to the west, near Magna. From here they looked like nothing more than match flames, but Matt knew their flames must tower over one hundred feet tall as they spewed thick black smoke into the clear sky.

The muffled but audible
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Of several weapons firing also came to their ears.

"Listen up!" the Comtech called at the top of his lungs. Everyone paid heed. Even the top gunner crouched down to hear. "We're coming up on the Northeastern perimeters main division. They are at the edge of the campus. West and North of them are the old neighborhoods. Now they are crawling with zombies." he was looking at Matt, as if everybody else in the already knew what he was saying. "Like I said earlier, aerial recon reported the deadfucks massing together. Well they've been coming out of the neighborhoods in waves several dozen at a time. They are having a problem keeping the perimeter secure. Control has ordered all units in the vicinity to assist."

"Hotdamn!" exclaimed Johnson. "It seems we're going to see some action after all!"

The Humvee accelerated quickly, weaving through a large grove of trees, emerging into another broad expanse of grassy knolls. Matt could hear what sounded like a large firefight. Ahead, spread out over 200 feet, was the Northern Perimeter encampment comprised of An M1A1 Abrams tank, a dozen Humvees, three personnel trucks and almost two hundred soldiers. The Humvees were spread out in a ragged line nearly two hundred feet in length, the top gunners firing to the northwest. The Tank sat squat in the center of the Humvees, turret facing northwest. The trucks were parked thirty feet behind the line of Humvees facing south, ready for a quick getaway if necessary. Soldiers were spread between the row of Humvees, others atop the tank. All were firing to the northwest. As their Humvee came pulling into the rear of the encampment, a soldier in full black and gray combat gear flagged them to a stop.

"Patrol five. Reporting as ordered!" The driver barked to the soldier.

"Take a position at the western end of the line!" the soldier was screaming to be heard over the gunfire. "Deploy your men, and start shooting deadfucks!"

"Yes sir!" the Driver barked, gunning the jeep into motion.

"You heard the man!" Jenkins yelled. "Once we park I want you all to take position to either side of the Humvee and shoot any deadfuck you lay your eyes on!"

The Humvee braked to a stop at the end of the line, and Jenkins threw open the back door and stepped out.

"Move your asses!"

Matt piled out behind him, un-slinging his rifle and thumbing off the safety. He stepped to the side of the Humvee and gazed across the battlefield. Ahead of the line of jeeps were a series of trenches, spread twenty-five feet apart. Each held half a dozen soldiers, rifles trained out ahead of them to the advancing wave of zombies. Forty feet beyond the trenches, the rolling lawn ended in a street that marked the beginning of a subdivision of neighborhoods, which spread to the north and west, down the hill, into the city. Zombies were pouring from these neighborhoods by the dozens. Matt blinked in surprise at the number of them; there must be at least five hundred spread out across a two hundred foot line, the nearest only thirty feet away. Hundreds more lay dead between the trenches and the street.

"What the hell are you waiting for?" Jenkins was screaming beside him. He was barely audible over the gunfire. "Open fire!"

Matt raised his gun to his shoulder and took aim. The zombie was a woman, or had been. Now she was nothing more than a pile of walking pus. Her head sagged to the side, eyes blank, her skin a slight shade of green. Her left arm ended in a jagged stump, three inches below the shoulder, with several inches of yellow bone poking through. Her clothes were tattered rags, stained with blood and grime. Matt’s hands were shaking with adrenaline, and his first shot went through the zombies throat. It stumbled back half a step, before continuing ahead. His second hit her between the eyes. He targeted another. And another. He emptied two full clips, scoring a kill with almost everyone. But the zombies kept coming. Ron was beside him, his own rifle blasting away. The kick of the gun and the smell of the powder put Matt in some kind of trance. Zombies fell dead like ducks in a shooting gallery.

Finally, after what seemed forever, it was over. He lowered his gun, surveying the carnage. Over two thousand zombies lay dead, piled in heaps ahead of them. There hadn't been a single human casualty. Matt looked around. Soldiers were smiling at one another, clapping each other on the back and laughing at their victory. Matt could hear nothing but a high-pitched ringing in his ears. Ron was beside him, saying something, a wide grin on his face. Matt shouldered his rifle, turning away from the carnage. His head spun, and he put a hand against the Humvee to keep his balance. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. When he opened them, Ron was beside him holding out a black canteen.

"Water."

The ringing in his ears had subsided some, and he could barely hear Ron. He took the canteen and gulped several mouthfuls of water. He splashed a bit on his face, hoping the cold water would help clear his head. He held the canteen towards Ron.

"Keep it." Ron said.

Matt sat there for several long minutes, taking deep breaths and sipping water, until the ringing faded to a dull whine. He would probably hear that until tomorrow.

"How are you holding up?" Ron asked from beside him.

"Good." Matt said, feeling anything but. "All that gunfire. It sort of put me in a daze."

Ron chuckled. "It'll do that."

"I've never seen so many of those things at once. They just kept coming." Matt was bewildered.

"It was never like that before." Ron said. "After the initial outbreak, we only saw strays every now and again. But for about the last week the deadfucks have been hitting in larger groups, but never more than a dozen or two. There must be a couple thousand dead zombies out there!"

At the opposite end of the Humvees, another shot rang out.

Then another.

Shouts.

Another shot.

"What the hell is going on now?" Ron muttered to no one in particular. As they headed around the front of the Humvee, several shots rang out at once, and as they came into view of the commotion, they realized at the same time that many of the shots were being fired at the soldiers. And they were coming from the neighborhood to the north. As they watched, ten soldiers came running out into the open. They wore black and gray Military body armor, Kevlar helmet, and sprayed the barrels of their M-16's back and forth as they drew nearer.

"Take cover!" Jenkins barked, ducking behind the nearest Humvee. Matt took cover as well, poking his head above the hood to see. The enemy soldiers charged on, emptying their clips into the ranks of the perimeter defenders. Several perimeter defenders fell, most only wounded thanks to their body armor, but a few unlucky ones lay with fatal wounds to the head. But the advancing enemy soldiers were far outnumbered by the perimeter defenders, and for every bullet they fired, ten were fired back at them. They staggered and fought for their feet as bullets tore into them, but they kept charging.

Matt was shocked. There was no way body armor could stop all of those bullets. Those men had to be wounded. One of the advancing soldiers stopped, and held his rifle at an odd angle. A small puff of smoke erupted from under the barrel as he fired his grenade launcher.

"Oh shit!" Ron exclaimed.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Jenkins screamed, ducking low and covering his face. Ron pulled Matt to the ground beside him, and Matt curled into a ball, protecting his face.

A tremendous explosion rattled Matt’s bones, causing his guts to feel like Jell-O. The noise was deafening! Matt raised his head to see a twisted metal ball of flame where the jeep on the far end used to be. Defenders lay broken and dead about the wreckage, some in pieces. The charging soldiers changed clips on the run, all the while bullets peppered into them.

"It can't be." Jenkins said, reaching for the binocular on his belt. He lifted them to his eyes. "SHIT!" he screamed.

"What is it?" Ron asked.

"Their deadfucks!" Jenkins exclaimed, still looking through the binocs.

"What!" Matt couldn't believe it.

"Deadfucks!' Jenkins was almost screaming. He held the binocs out. "Look for yourself!" Ron snatched them, holding them up to his eyes.

"Well I'll be goddamned." he said softly.

Jenkins looked to the rest of his squad. "Hold your positions!" he called. "Keep a sharp eye on our own area!"

Ron handed the binocs to Matt. He was almost afraid to look. But he did. They were zombies all right, big ones well over six feet tall. And they looked different. Their faces were skulls, with only cobwebs of black leathery flesh still clinging to them, slimy black with rot.

And they were clad in US Army full combat gear, including helmets.

And they carried M-16's.

And they were running at full speed.

Through the binoculars he could see the bullets tearing into the zombies body armor. He saw a bullet smash right through ones head, taking most of the lower jaw and sending it spinning to the ground…Where it rolled with the fall and came up in a crouch, fingering the trigger to its grenade launcher! Matt saw the puff of smoke.

"Fire in the hole!" he heard Jenkins scream again.

Matt ducked for cover again and another explosion went off, this one much closer. He looked up, seeing the grenade had hit behind the line of vehicles, near one of the transport trucks. Screams from the wounded were drowned out by the gunfire.

There were at least a hundred soldiers now firing at the charging zombies, and armor or no, the sheer impact of so many bullets was enough to knock them from their feet. The flak suits they wore were smashed and battered into useless rags, and the bullets riddled black leathery flesh. But they still came on. A grenade landed near one, taking one of its arms and both of its legs in the explosion. Black blood, coagulated to thick mucus poured from the jagged stumps. Amazingly, it raised its head to gain its bearings, and used its single arm to roll itself over and begin dragging itself towards the perimeter defenders.

"We got company!' Ron screamed.

Matt looked around to see a fresh wave of zombies emerge from the neighborhood directly across from their position. In the time it took them to take new positions and begin firing, there were one hundred zombies in the open.

Matt raised his gun, and began picking targets. The flanking maneuver had caught the defenders off guard, with over half diverting their attention to the armed zombies. Behind the wave of advancing zombies, three more fully armed and armored superzombies burst into the open. Matt turned his attention to one of them, aiming for the creature's hands and weapon. He knew his bullets would do little to stop it, but if he could take out its weapon, it would also be harmless. At least until it closed to hand to hand range. But they would have to worry about that then. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jenkins haul back and throw a grenade like a baseball. It arced high, dropping right in the center of the wave of staggering, normal zombies. Already dead bodies were blasted apart, while others fell from jagged shrapnel through the brain. Suddenly, fresh zombies emerged all along the length of the perimeter. There were now a total of thirteen superzombies in the fray. Most of the initial ten had been blown into torsos with barely an arm or leg. But they kept fighting.

Fire. Fire is how you deal with those ones.

The air was alive with bullets, mowing a path through the stumbling, rotting hordes that crept foreword ever so slowly.

Gunfire was returned.

The top gunner of Patrol Five, the Humvee Matt had ridden in on, tumbled from his perch with a bullet through the throat. The armed superzombies used their grenades as well, destroying the Humvees with precision aiming. But in turn they were being eliminated with grenades. It was the only effective way to stop them.

Out of nowhere an Apache gunship appeared over their heads, arcing slowly across the battlefield thirty feet in the sky. The twin electric Vulcan Machineguns sprayed a stream of death into the ranks of the zombies, the spinning ten barreled cylinders spewing forth 500 rounds a second. The zombies were literally shredded to hunks of rotted meat. Even the superzombies fell beneath the Vulcan machinegun fire, their body-armor no match for the six-inch bullets that tore into them by the hundreds. Within a minute it was over. The battlefield was covered with blood and guts and chunks of what used to be bodies, as well as the two thousand corpses of the earlier battle. The helicopter swooped over the neighborhood; its Vulcan's spewing death into the remaining ranks of zombies that advanced. The soldiers of the perimeter regrouped, reporting to squad leaders who in turn reported to command. All of the perimeter defenders killed in the fighting were rounded up and a bullet put through each ones brain, regardless of how they had died. They took no chances. The bodies were then loaded aboard one of the transport trucks, where they would be taken back for cremation. The wounded were also loaded aboard one of the trucks and shipped back to the main base at Fort Douglas.